Pennsylvania Case Vindicates Lawsuit Troll Advice on ATMs

A September victory for a Pennsylvania credit union against an ATM disclosure complaint appears to vindicate the advice of attorneys and insurance providers that credit unions take special care to monitor their ATMs to rebuff similar cases.

The complaint arose from Gerald Reviello who, according to court records, alleged that the 107,000-member, $848 million Philadelphia Federal Credit Union had failed to provide a notice about its ATM fee on the outside of a machine.

Reviello sued under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act.

This case is similar to dozens of similar cases across the country, launched in both state and federal courts, and has led to attempts to address the problem through legislation as attorneys and insurance providers have urged credit unions to include signage in their regular ATM maintenance protocols.

This approach appears to have played a key role in Philadelphia being able to rebuff the accusation as the credit union was able to prove that it had the required sign on its machine.

“Although Plaintiff alleges that no on-machine fee notice was provided in a ‘prominent and conspicuous location,’ Plaintiff is not being forthright with the Court,” the credit union argued in its filings.

“The photographs of the ATM attached to Plaintiff's complaint do not provide legible copies of the on-machine fee notice provided by the Defendant. A legible photograph on the on-machine fee notice is submitted herewith as Exhibit 2.....Neither the EFTA nor its implementing regulation sets forth any specific requirement regarding the size, features, or other attributes of the on-machine notice. It merely needs to be prominent and conspicuous. Here, the on-machine notice was prominently and conspicuously displayed on the front of the ATM.”